Merrell might be best known as a hiking shoe brand, but recent years have seen the Michigan-based outfit make massive strides in trail running shoes, and its new release is designed for anyone seeking a technical shoe that can handle everything from tarmac to trail.
Personally, Merrell trail running shoes have become my favorite to run in over the last four years. The Merrell Long Sky 2 Matryx are unbelievably light, breathable, and sticky and have taken me from the volcanic trails of Gran Canaria to the rather soggier ones of Scotland without issue.
Last year, the Merrell Morphlite was released, offering the brand's first hybrid road-to-trail shoe that was built with enough cushion and responsiveness for hard roads and the stability and light grip for straightforward trails. I absolutely loved it, especially for vacations where I know I'm going to want to run, but am not sure what type of terrain I'm going to encounter. However, it wasn't built for technical or muddy trails.
Now, Merrell has taken what made that shoe so awesome and made it more technical for those who want to go further off-road but still travel routes that take them along roads.
Meet the Merrell ProMorph
The Merrell ProMorph, out now, shares DNA with the Morphlite, but it's designed to be more aggressive so you can take on rougher trails.
Since the biggest claim is that it provides better traction, let's start at the bottom and work our way up. Whereas the Morphlite left a fair amount of midsole exposed and has shallow lugs (3mm and 2mm) around the perimeter and under the heel and forefoot, the Vibram XS Trek rubber outsole of the ProMorph covers most of the bottom of the shoe and is absolutely peppered with small lugs. At 2.2mm, they're not super deep, but there are dozens (over 100?) of them, and the brand says this provides adaptable traction across a variety of terrain.
As for the midsole, the ProMorph has upgraded from FloatPro to FloatPro+, which uses the increasingly popular supercritical foam (that's nitrogen-injected) for lightweight responsiveness.
The stack has gone up, from 26.5 in the heel to 32.5, while the 6.5mm drop has remained the same, and here's hoping the synthetic and mesh upper is as breathable as the Morphlite because that's an absolute dream on warm days. The added tech has added a little weight, but at roughly 9oz (260g), these are still astonishingly light.
It's definitely true that gear that serves multiple functions sometimes does a decent job at everything without excelling at everything, but based on my experiences with the Morphlite, my hopes are high that these will be the Leatherman of running shoes.
The Merrell ProMorph is available now in men's and women's sizing for $160 / £150 at Merrell.
